Apparently some Torontoites aren't just cold, but whiny as well.
What the hell Coors? Just when you shy away from that Silver Bullet nonsense and come up with something both hilarious and clever you pull it because of a few whiners?
Are these really the people who are going to drink your beer?
Ok, let’s back up. In case you didn’t see the headlines this week, Coors recently decided to scrap an ad campaign a few weeks early. The campaign was put up on billboards across BC. The controversial message: Coors Light is “colder than most people from Toronto.” Shocker. Here’s the background story courtesy of our good friends at the Tyee.
What really gets me is it is not the Toronto community that’s has been agitating for the destruction of the ad campaign, but rather a small select group of humourless folks who seem to pop up in every community around the world. They’re kinda like that dude you met recently at your friends party who didn’t laugh at jokes and seemed to get a kick out of taking personal offense to any vaguely controversial thing you say (I met this person several years ago at a sociology party at the University of Victoria). These people are loud, opinionated, and chomping at the bit the get in a scrap about anything deemed vaguely politically incorrect. What they lack in numbers, they make up for in volume. It’s this shrill volume that’s got the Coors marketing execs freaking out and what eventually convinced them they need to pull their ads.
It’s really to bad. The campaign is clever and plays well on the growing regionality that exists in our great country. It’s a regional pride that sometimes gets its energy from friendly provincial rivalry.
BC – the laid back pot smokers; Alberta – the country, right wing, religious, oil people; Manitoba – mosquitos and a ring road that traps people from Winnipeg from ever escaping; Quebec – gravey-drenched poutine and gorgeous women. I could go on, but I’ll leave that for anyone who wants to comment.
The point is each region has good and bad stereotypes that make them unique and bond their citizens in a terrific way. The fact that Westerners think of Torontoites as cold and business-focussed denizens of corporatism and capitalism (Toronto has been likened by many Canadians as the Centre of the Universe for a reason), isn’t surprising. It also should be taken with a grain of salt. There are lots of Torontoites that don’t fit that mold (or the Coors campaign mold for that matter) and are as warm as can be.
Why? Because in a way each community boasts its own characteristics. The good characteristics should be celebrated. The bad ones should be laughed at. Unfortunately, many in Toronto and Coors don’t seem to be laughing to hard.